UTICA, N.Y. (AP/WSVN) — Police in upstate New York have arrested a woman after her 9-month-old baby was found crawling in a busy roadway.
Utica Police Department Lt. Bryan Coromato tells the Observer-Dispatch on Saturday officers saw a video on Facebook of the infant alone in the street Friday night.
The video shows good Samaritans stopping their cars to attend to the crying baby. One man picks up the child.
Coromato says the child’s mother, 27-year-old Ledrika E. Ford, told investigators the infant was secured in the back seat of her car when she left the location near where the baby was found. However, “a short time later” she looked back and noticed her baby wasn’t there.
A man who lives in the area said he finds the story hard to believe. “I don’t know about that. I mean somebody had open the door take the baby and put it on the street right.”
Ford returned to the scene and the baby was taken to a hospital for evaluation.
It took police and two women from Child Protective Services several hours to figure who the mother was.
Ford’s baby boy along with three other young girls have been taken away by authorities.
She was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and is due back in court next Friday.
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